Eco friendly purses and bags are becoming more and more popular, and they will soon replace plastic bags altogether. We have talked in the past about eco tote bags, sustainable jute tote bags, and other fabrics with low impact on the environment, but today we will look at things from a different perspective. Let us see today if eco friendly purses and bags are as good for you as they are for the environment.

The Biggest Selling Points of Eco Friendly Purses and Bags

As we already know, we can reuse eco friendly purses, shopping bags, tote bags, and backpacks as many times as we want. Most common materials and fabrics we use for such sustainable bags are cotton/canvas, jute, hemp, polypropylene, calico, and others. Each comes with its fair share of advantages (and some disadvantages), so we will begin by discussing the environmental benefits of using these products more.

• Of course, the most significant selling point is their reusability – in direct relationship with the fabrics’ resilience to wear and tear.

What few people know, however, is that eco friendly purses have a myriad of benefits besides the obvious one – help you carry groceries in a plastic-free manner. We have partially touched on such issues before, but now we want to offer a clearer picture.

• Canvas shopping bags and cotton tote bags reduce the world’s need to use plastic and paper. If we give up on using plastic and paper shopping and groceries bags, we would cut fewer trees and reduce the activity of the plastic industry at least in some departments;
• The cultivation of jute increases the soil fertility. Increasing the amount of jute tote bags to wear at work or to use as gift/wedding favor bags can sustain and help grow the communities cultivating jute plants.
• Canvas eco friendly purses, bags, and totes can smoothly go together with your other clothes in the washing machine, so you can keep them clean and disinfected. If you wondered whether is cheaper to buy plastic bags instead of regularly washing cotton and canvas bags, we would tell you one thing: the amount of plastic bags in landfills and waters is so high right now it kills marine life. You are washing clothes anyway, thus throwing the shopping bags in there as well comes with an insignificant impact in comparison to using plastic bags.
• Despite it being a class of plastic, polypropylene is a material that follows in the category of sustainable and environmentally friendly fabrics. Yes, it is plastic, but it has a low production cost and is durable, meeting thus the reusability criterion. Moreover, you can wash non-woven polypropylene purses and drawstring bags, for instance, by hand, and reuse them for how many times you like.
• Numerous tote bags come in already-recycled materials; canvas, jute, cotton, and hemp are biodegradable and compostable fabrics. When their life is over, you can turn them into a new resource to serve the environment.
• You can repurpose and restyle canvas/cotton bags and purses, giving them new life. In other words, such eco friendly bags can live even longer, past their standard

Eco Friendly Purses and Shopping Bags are Sustainable. Do They Also have Disadvantages?

After we summed up the main environmental advantages of using eco friendly purses, shopping bags, backpacks, and gift bags as well, it is time to learn about some issues as well. While these bags are not disadvantageous, they may pose a few problems. In the spirit of fairness and transparency, we believe we have to talk about them too so you can make an educated choice.

• Cotton and canvas tote bags are not resilient to staining and leakages. In other words, if you use such purses and handbags for shopping, school, work, the beach, or casual activities, you need to know you have to wash them regularly, to sanitize them, remove spots and stains, and keep them bacteria-free. Luckily, we already tackled this issue, and if you want to learn more about how to wash your canvas bags safely, we have a full canvas/cotton cleaning guide ready for you. Also, keep in mind that cotton tends to shrink, so it is better to follow the washing rules to a tee to avoid such inconvenience.
• Jute tote bags make excellent office eco friendly purses, gift bags, book bags, wedding favor bags, and shopping bags as well. However, you should remember to be careful with jute, because the fabric is not moisture-resistant and specialists do not recommend you wash it in the washing machine. In other words, if you choose a jute eco friendly purse for work, you should keep its content as safe as possible (do not carry cosmetics that can spill, containers or foods that can leak, and so on).
• Non-woven polypropylene bags, backpacks, and purses, just like jute, are not good candidates for the washing machine. Therefore, you need to employ handwashing and a few particular measures to keep them for more extended

Final Thoughts on Sustainability and Usefulness

Eco friendly purses and bags – cotton, canvas, jute, and even polypropylene – can answer one of the many questions related to sustainability practices. From a practical point of view, a canvas shopping bag is stronger than any plastic bag you would use to carry your heavy groceries.

As fashion eco friendly purses go, as we have seen a few times before, the modern designs and the unique take on their construction make such bags perfect for school, teaching, traveling, beach vacationing, office work, and casual wear. They hold much longer, and you can even waterproof them.